Opposition plays waiting game on the buses

IT’S the curse of the late-night commuter. The last train has left for the suburbs and the only option – other than an expensive taxi – is to wait … and wait.The State Government runs NightRide buses after midnight to replace trains but the services are infrequent and crowded, often with drunken and rowdy revellers.Today the NSW Opposition will release the next phase of its transport policy, which includes doubling the number of buses on key routes and introducing services to routes that have been neglected.”These NightRide buses are crucial in ensuring that people in Sydney are able to get home safely from shift work or following a night out,” the Opposition’s transport spokeswoman, Gladys Berejiklian, told the Herald.The Greiner government introduced the buses – modelled on the service in London – to a mixed reception in 1989, after axing most after-midnight rail services. Ms Berejiklian said that, over the past 15 years, the NightRide service had been run down.In the early hours of yesterday morning, she joined the Opposition Leader, Barry O’Farrell, to meet passengers waiting, not always patiently, outside Town Hall station on George Street, for the NightRide.”As with most transport in Sydney, the Government has failed to expand the service to meet population growth,” she said. ”On busy nights of the week, like Thursday nights, commuters can be waiting an hour for a bus home.”Ms Berejiklian said the lack of late-night public transport from the city, especially on traditional party nights of Friday and Saturday, increased the risk of drink-driving because people were impatient at the long intervals between buses.”The lack of access to public transport can also lead to increased youth crime and anti-social behaviour in suburbs, where young people cannot travel to major centres for entertainment and social activities.”She said a Coalition government would extend the weekend timetable to include Thursday night, doubling the frequency of services that night, and introduce a new NightRide bus for the Richmond line, which has no service.The four weekend buses that terminate at Blacktown would be extended, with new stops at Marayong, Quakers Hill, Schofields, Riverstone, Vineyard, Mulgrave, Windsor, Clarendon, East Richmond and Richmond.She would double weekend services to Macarthur, and extend the current service, which terminates at Liverpool, further south-west to Campbelltown, Leumeah, Minto, Ingleburn, Macquarie Fields, Glenfield and Casula. A weekend NightRide service would be introduced along the Carlingford Line as well as more buses to Parramatta.The Coalition is also proposing an hourly service from the City to Carlingford, via Lidcombe, with stops at Clyde, Rosehill, Camellia, Rydalmere, Dundas, Telopea, and Carlingford. It would also provide $725,000 a year, on top of the existing $6.2 million, to increase NightRide services.